An Interview with Jennifer Lyon

Welcome to the Forbidden Magic Release Blitz blog hop, brought to you by Innovative Online Book Tours.

Tea and Book will be offering you a wonderful interview with Jennifer Lyon as well as a fun give away! Thanks to Jennifer we will be offering give aways to THREE people.. yep that's right THREE! There will be signed copies of Night Magic, Sinful Magic and a give away of Jennifer's New Novella Forbidden Magic on eBook.

What do you need to win? well

• you must follow Tea and Book.. either on the soon to be defunct GFC, Linky, Facebook, Twitter or via email..
• you must leave a comment

Easy Peasy! Contest for signed books only available in the US and the eBook of Forbidden Magic is an INTL contest!

Now on to the good stuff!!

Tea: Jennifer let me first take the time to answer my questions. As you know I am a HUGE fan of your books and am looking forward to many many more.

JL: Thank you! I’m pleased to be here.

Tea:First off I want to just ask about the Wingslayers, in general. How did they come to be?

JL: I started with an idea, a premise of creating men worthy of loving the witches I had in mind. So I kept playing around and then one day, as I was writing, Axel Locke appeared on the page. From that moment on, it was all a matter of letting Axel have his way. He knew who he was, it just took me a little time to catch on.

Tea: I think the growing trend these days are Wings.. I have to admit I love the wings.. What made you decide on giving your ever so sexy men wings? And was there a specific reason as to why they each received different types of wings.

JL: I actually didn’t know ahead of time about the wings. When I sold the proposal, the hunters had the tattoos, and they meant something to each hunter, but no real wings had appeared yet. That happened while I was writing the story, and Axel had to save Darcy. I tried to resist, but in the end, I went with it to see what happened. And it worked. It was organic to the characters and made sense. Their god is Wing Slayer, he made the hunters in his image, so they should have wings. I just hadn’t realized it yet.

Tea: Of the first four Wingslayer books, each one caught me differently. It seems to me that while your story remains true to the arc but your characters create the flavor. For instance Blood Magic caught my attention made me smile, Soul Magic was about making tough decisions and that love can be declared.. Night Magic had such a unique heroine.. and Sinful Magic just made me cry.. All of them were beautifully crafted. Do you plan those points out? Or do your characters define the story?

JL: First, I’m so impressed with your thoughts on each story! Now to my answer: My characters define the story. I do plot and prewrite, and have a general outline of where I think I’m going. Then I write the first draft and that’s painful for me. It’s the longest part of the process, and a struggle as I try to rip away the layers of my characters to understand them at their very core.

The men fight me on this every single time. That whole first draft is a battle between us, the hero trying to protect himself and keep his core, his very soul, protected and me with my sharp knives, poking and prodding. Eventually, I get to the end of my first draft, and the whole picture comes together for me.

Then I rewrite, and that usually goes much, much faster for me. That’s the part I love, I feel the characters and can, hopefully, show the readers who they are.

Tea: Do you have a favorite Wingslayer? Or Witch?

JL: For the witches, I’d say Ailish. Her blindness made her a challenge to write, and I came to love her refusal to feel sorry for herself as she fought to right a wrong she’d done. She’s special to me.

And the Wing Slayer Hunters—it’s always the one I’m working on. Ram’s my guy now. I always knew there was so much more to Ram than most would guess. But I love them all, each for different reasons.

Tea: I know Ram's story is out now, who do you plan to write about next?

JL: Next, I’m going to write about Linc, and his witch, Risa. And then Eli, and his heroine tentatively named Savina. And then I’ll come full circle back to Ram and Ginny—as their story is not over.

Tea: Will you be introducing more Wingslayers?

JL: I believe so. I know of one for sure, although he’s not exactly a Wing Slayer Hunter 

Tea: Do you firmly believe good and evil is clearly defined? Do you have a character that absolutely can not be redeemed?

JL: I think good and evil is about the choices we make, and no one is perfect. As for characters, yeah, I can’t redeem certain ones. Like Quinn Young, we saw in BLOOD MAGIC that he killed the heroine’s mother to gain more power from the demon Asmodeus. When he made the choice, and then created armies of rogues to kill innocent witches, there’s just no going back from that. But I can redeem characters who walk that line of choice, never really committing to one side or other.

Tea: While I am a dedicated fan of the Wingslayers, I know you also write the Samantha Shaw Series.. Will you be continuing with that series?

JL: I don’t know, that series was canceled years ago by the publisher. They wanted to move me into their Brava line, and just sort of abandoned Sam. I have the rights to the first two books back, but there’s a lot to consider with that series.

Tea: Do you have a preference to which series you are writing?

JL: Right now, I love paranormal, the big worlds with huge stakes and characters forced to make unimaginable choices. There’s room in the paranormal world to write dark and sexy with a splash a humor. So that’s what I’m really enjoying at the moment.

Tea: If you were told you could only ever write one series.. what would it be about?

JL: I think that would paralyze me to have my choices taken away! Seriously. But off the top of my head, I’d say the Wing Slayer Hunters. But I’d always wonder what I’d be missing in the future if I was only allowed to write one series. I have a couple other ideas bubbling as I type this.

Tea: Do you have this dream story sitting in the back of your mind? Just waiting for the right moment to escape to paper?

JL: I always have some thread of a story or an idea brewing. In fact, for quite a while I’ve been developing an idea about dragon shapeshifters and Fae that I’ve recently sent to my agent. I love that world, and the characters, and hope to write that someday.

Tea: I know it was difficult for you when your publishers shut you down and am so impressed with your decision to self publish. What advice to you have for authors that want to go that route?

JL: First, thank you. I appreciate that. I’m certainly not the first, so many other authors have done it and forged the path for us. Now there are all kinds of resources out there to help. I am still learning, so this is like taking advice from a baby, but here it goes:

1. Think about this, be sure you have the drive, commitment and follow through. The one thing I did NOT want to do is disappoint my fans.
2. Research. Learn from others. There is all kinds of information on the Internet. Talk to other writers who have self published, they are a wealth of experience.
3. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and build a support team for your weak areas. Know what you’re good at and what you need help with. For instance, in the novella I had well qualified author-friends to help me with content editing, but I absolutely needed a copy editor/proof reader. I don’t see my own mistakes at that point. I mean I am completely blind to them, I accept this about myself and hired a professional. For a full length book, I will need a full content edit and a copy editor.
4. If you decide to go through with it, give the book you’re going to self publish your heart, just as you would a book you’re publishing through a traditional publisher. Our readers deserve our best book, no matter what format we publish it in.

Tea: Now that you know what's involved, would you do it all over again?

JL: I still have limited experience, but yes I would. I’ve really enjoyed the process so far.

Tea: I read you spent a lot of time in traffic, consequently do a lot of work with your alone time.. Do you have a recorder with you so you can just speak your thoughts?

JL: No, although I’ve thought of it. But I usually allow my mind to roam, letting my subconscious work on any problems or ideas, and listening to that rambling on tape would be painful  So I just let my thoughts go, and then if I think of something worth remembering, I write it down on any scrap of paper I can find the first chance I get.

Tea: If you were told.. you could live anywhere in the world that you wanted to BUT you could never leave.. where would you choose?

JL: The idea of not being able to leave if I make the wrong choice that scares me, LOL! Hmm, maybe Santa Barbara, California? I really don’t know!

Tea: Was there any one person who inspired you to write?

JL: All the authors I read when my life was in turmoil as a teenager. They showed me that we can survive difficult times and achieve happy endings. I am grateful to every single one of them.

Tea: Do you have a special place that you really love to write?

JL: I love working at my desk. It’s a huge oak desk that I bought with my first advance. I like having all my notes and books close at hand.

Speed Round, One or two word answers

Tea: Boxers or Briefs?

JL: Briefs

Tea: Laguna Beach or Venice Beach

JL: Laguna Beach

Tea:What's your favorite Disneyland Ride?

JL: Space Mountain

Tea: Disneyland or Knotts Berry Farm

JL: Knotts for the Log Ride

Tea: Beer or Wine?

JL: Wine

Tea: Favorite movie

JL: Tough one. Ghost comes to mind.

Tea: Beach or Mountains?

JL: Beach

Tea: Roses or Daisies

JL: Roses

Tea: Who are you reading right now?

JL: Just finished Fifty Shades of Grey, and beginning Fifty Shades Darker.

Tea: convertible or SUV?

JL: SUV since I’ve never had a convertible.

Tea: Thank you again for taking the time to answer our questions.

JL: I’d like to thank you Shauni, and Tea and Book, for having me! It’s a pleasure to be here and hang out with other book lovers!

Shauni

You can find Jennifer at

Her Website

On Facebook

or her Wingslayer Hunter Facebook page

On Twitter

On Goodreads

And can purchase Forbidden Magic at

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

This interview was brought to you by Innovative Online Book Tours! Make sure you visit the rest of the Blog Blitz Team shown below